Browsed by
Tag: church

Leon F. Olsen

Leon F. Olsen

Most of my memories of my grandfather revolve around his library. It was where he was most at home.  He started collecting books at the age of 12. At night, he would climb out of his bedroom window and catch nightcrawlers which he would sell to fisherman. He would make $20-$30 worth of book money a summer. Before he passed, he chose a book to give to each of the grandchildren – as if he were giving each of us…

Read More Read More

Easter 2016

Easter 2016

This year, Easter kind of snuck up on me. I’d spent all of March studying the Atonement and trying to figure out how to teach my Sunday school lesson on Easter Sunday, but hadn’t given hardly any thought (other than to purchase a ham) to celebrating Easter with our family. Literally, the day before Easter Noel and I talked about what we wanted to do. We decided we wanted to try splitting up the secular celebration of Easter (gifts and…

Read More Read More

Traditions in the Making

Traditions in the Making

Every time someone would ask us about our Christmas plans we would say, “We’re staying here – and we’re so happy about it!” As much as Noel and I love our families, we truly despise traveling this time of year (see Top Ten Worst Moments of last year’s Christmas) and are also enjoying figuring out our own traditions. Growing up, my family had a lot of Christmas traditions while Noel’s family wasn’t as committed to specific ways of doing things…

Read More Read More

Getting into the Spirit of the Season

Getting into the Spirit of the Season

I always have to warm up to Christmas. As much as I want it to be the most wonderful time of the year, sometimes it’s hard for me to be very joyful when the roads are icy and everywhere you turn there’s a barrage of commercialism. This year it felt like it took extra effort on my part to really get into the Christmas spirit, but in the end I feel like all the work and soul searching has actually…

Read More Read More

A Vegas Halloween

A Vegas Halloween

Our trips to Las Vegas are never what people imagine. When you’re a parent, a Mormon, and you’re visiting family it’s definitely very different from what most people do in Vegas. Our purpose in going to Vegas was to be there for Noel’s grandma’s 80th birthday and because of the way our flights worked out, we were also there for Halloween. Life was a tad bit crazy leading up to our trip. Noel was out of town for work earlier…

Read More Read More

Back Up and Running

Back Up and Running

There was a time when I would have apologized for a lapse in blogging, but just like how I’ve stopped apologizing for the nearly constant pile of dirty dishes in my sink and for my children not being perfect Stepford children, I won’t be apologizing for this either. For no reason, but every reason I’ve been super contemplative lately about everything and nothing at all and lying low on the internet has been refreshing and glorious. We recently switched web…

Read More Read More

Chutes & Ladders: An Epic Road Trip

Chutes & Ladders: An Epic Road Trip

When we initially planned this trip months ago, it started out as just a little family road trip, but then more and more fun things came up that got added on. I usually like to come up with a story to share or a thread to follow when talking about our adventures, but there is so much I want to share about the last two weeks. Forgive me for this being a little bit journal-y. I’ve highlighted each day with just one…

Read More Read More

Easter 2015

Easter 2015

We’ve had some pretty exciting Easters, and while this one definitely wouldn’t fall into that category, it was nice to have a low-key Easter this year. On Easter morning, the kids came out to find their Easter buckets (yes, buckets). They were excited to get warm weather pajamas, a special gift (a book for Cooper and Hello Kitty silverware for Ellen) as well as a somewhat spiritual movie (and personal favorite) The Prince of Egypt. After reading the Easter story…

Read More Read More

A Merry Christmas Whirlwind

A Merry Christmas Whirlwind

This year Christmas sprawled across two weeks which in some ways was lovely, but in other ways was exhausting. We celebrated Christmas at home on the 20th then travelled to Utah to celebrate Christmas with my family. By the time we made it back to Colorado more gifts had accumulated on our front porch and so we had what felt like third Christmas. Even now that we’re in the first week of January, I keep coming across bits of wrapping…

Read More Read More

It’s Always Fun When Grandpa [and Grandma] Come!

It’s Always Fun When Grandpa [and Grandma] Come!

It’s still strange for me to think of my parents as grandparents sometimes. I feel old enough to be a parent, but I just don’t think of my parents as being old enough to be grandparents. Regardless, just like the song, Cooper and Ellen love it when grandma and grandpa come to visit. Noel and I also love their visits because the kids tend to get into less  trouble since they’re getting so much attention.  Also, if we’re lucky, we’re able…

Read More Read More